COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Ukraine has revoked the press accreditation of Danish state broadcaster DR’s correspondent over allegations of having spread Russian propaganda, DR said on Tuesday, prompting denials from both the journalist and her employer.
Matilde Kimer, an award-winning journalist who has covered Ukraine and Russia for DR since 2014, said Ukraine initially revoked her accreditation in August.
At a December meeting in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) alleged that she was spreading Russian propaganda and that her social media posts appeared to sympathize with Russia, Kimer told Reuters. According to her, the security service did not provide evidence of their allegations.
Neither the SBU nor the Ukrainian Defence Ministry immediately responded to written requests for comment when contacted by Reuters.
DR’s foreign policy editor, Niels Kvale, called the allegations “completely undocumented and crazy” and Kimer herself denied biased reporting.
“I have not engaged in propaganda. I work with no other task than to inform Danes about what is going on in Ukraine,” Kimer said.
Kimer, 41, was also expelled from Russia in August amid Moscow’s crackdown on Western media outlets following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Reuters he would work to resolve the matter at a political level.
“I myself have followed Matilde Kimer’s coverage of the war with great interest. This is a journalist whose journalistic integrity, as far as I know, has not been questioned,” Rasmussen said.
(Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Nick Macfie)
